Level: New characters start at 1 level lower than the lowest actively played character, with a fourth level minimum.

Rulebooks in use: The 3.5 System Reference Document (SRD). This is basically the core rulebooks minus the flavor text (3.5 Player's Handbook, 3.5 Dungeon Masters Guide, 3.5 Psionics Handbook and 3.5 Monster Manual). That's it. No splat books, no third party supplements, no web site material. For ease of reference, you can use this copy of the 3.5 SRD. It has all the rules we are using in one place.